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Foreign Policy: The President Is a Screw-up

"A wholesale reconsideration of a strategy," as the Times described the Obama administration's present position on Afghanistan, might not be as bad as it sounds. If the Bush White House had ever had a wholesale reconsideration with regard to Iraq, the world would likely be in a better place.

Still, it doesn't fill you with confidence. What it clearly says is we've got no idea what to do. Now, this could be because of changing circumstances and a new set of problems that puts you back at square one—shit does happen. Or because you've just been faking it.

Or worse. You've been totally making it up as you go along and have come to believe you're a natural.

It seems pretty clear that the Obama foreign policy is being run in all important aspects by the president himself. On this subject, he fancies himself the smartest boy in the class. He's the decider and he's decisive.

Both the State Department and the Defense Department seem to be curiously content about letting him run with it (is Hillary Clinton wily or traumatized?).